How to Sync Folders Between Multiple Computers With a USB Drive

The biggest problem with managing multiple computers is with the data saved in the respective hard drives and accessing them. Imagine you have to work with two computers daily – one in your office and the other one in your home. You have to keep the important files and folders synced from both computers, if you want to access them from either location.

That’s when online sync services like Dropbox and iDriveSync comes handy, these services use the internet to sync data between multiple computers you own.

The disadvantage of using an online sync service is that they take some time to upload the files from the host computer and then download them over at the client computer. So if you have really large collection of movies or photos, online sync seems to be a tedious option. Moreover, all these sync services are not entirely free and to upgrade for more space, you have to pay a monthly fee.

But what if you do not have internet access at home or office? What if you need a simple utility which can sync data between multiple computers using a removable drive?Syncsharp is a brilliant utility which can be used to sync the contents of any number of folders between two computers running Windows. The program requires .NET framework to be installed on both computers and does not require any installation. Just drop the syncsharp.exe file on both computers and you are ready for the sync process.

Sync Folders Between Two computers

1. After you have downloaded Syncsharp, run the executable and add a new Sync Task, as shown below:

2. In the next window that appears, first choose the source directory or folder by browsing to the directory on the source computer. Then select the target location as the USB drive, as shown below:

If you would regularly perform sync activity of this specific folder, it’s recommended to enter a name of the sync task so that you can use the saved task and save time later on.

Once you are done with all the above steps, click “OK”.

3. In the same way, create a new task for each folder in your local computer which you want to sync with the second computer. Make sure to keep a safe backup of the “profiles” folder because this folder contains the data about your sync activity.

4. Now open the SyncSharp application on the source computer and select all the sync task. Hit “Control + S” and all the folders are backed up in your USB device one by one. You will see the following window once the process is over:

5. Now unplug your USB drive from the source computer and plug it in the USB port of your second computer.

6. Open Syncsharp.exe from the second computer and choose the source directory as your removable drive. Then choose the folder in the second computer where you want the data to be synched, as shown below:

7. Save the task and hit Control + S. You are all done, sit back and wait for the data to get synced from the USB drive to the second computer.

You can choose to sync the content of the second computer with the first one, this will have no effect with the earlier backup.

Why SyncSharp Is Better Than a Simple Copy And Paste?

You may raise a question – Why use another tool when I can easily use a simple copy paste and copy the data in my USB drive? Then I can cut paste the data on my other computer.

True, but only when you have a small number of files to be synched between multiple computers. If you have a large amount of data to consider which may include endless images, PDF or Word documents, folders and nested folders – it becomes impossible to memorize the content of each directory and copy the files you want.

Moreover, at the end of the day you need a simple tool which will free you from staring at the computer screen just to take a routine backup. Just plug your removable hard disk, import a sync profile and hit the Sync button. Then plug the removable drive on the other computer, import the sync task and hit the Sync button. That’s it all the data will be mirrored between both the computers – you will not lose anything because both the directories will contain all the files and folders before taking the backup.

If you have multiple computers at your home, it would be even better to connect them via an ethernet cable and use the “My Network places” folder to sync or copy data between multiple computers.

What backup or sync tool do you use ? Do you prefer using an online sync tool or an offline one ? Share your ideas in the comments.